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December 29, 2015

* Mr. Ikhlaq was killed after
residents stormed his house following a public announcement over the
loudspeaker of a Hindu temple that he had killed and eaten parts of a cow,
villagers said. The cow is a holy symbol for Hindus, and its slaughter is
banned in much ofIndia,
including Uttar Pradesh.

* “Everyone is talking about the
report now, but you tell me why should we have lied?” said Ikraman Ikhlaq, Mr.
Ikhlaq’s widow, in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “We said then it was
goat’s meat, and the truth is out now. It does not matter anymore. My husband
is dead and gone, and our lives will never be the same again.”

BySuhasini Raj

A handwritten report by a
doctor at the GovernmentVeterinaryHospital in Dadri,

Uttar
Pradesh State, India. Credit Yusuf Saif

JAIPUR, India — Three months
after an angrymob beat to death a Muslim
manin
the state of Uttar Pradesh following rumors that he had slaughtered a cow and
consumed its meat, a preliminary investigation has found that the meat
retrieved from his home was goat.

A handwritten report, dated
Sept. 29, by a doctor at the GovernmentVeterinaryHospital in Dadri, near the village of Bisada, where the victim, Mohammad
Ikhlaq, lived, concluded that, “It seems that this meat belongs to goat
progeny.” The meat has been sent to another lab in the state for a final
forensic test.

The findings were submitted with formal charges filed in a local
court in Gautam Budh Nagar District last Wednesday against 15 men in the
village accused of murder and attempted murder, among other crimes. All 15 have
been arrested.

The findings, which were
initially reported by the local news media on Monday, was made available to The
New York Times by Yusuf Saifi, the lawyer for Mr. Ikhlaq’s family. He said the
examination was conducted in late September, when the police registered the
case, but was submitted only when formal charges were filed last week.

Mr. Ikhlaq was killed after
residents stormed his house following a public announcement over the
loudspeaker of a Hindu temple that he had killed and eaten parts of a cow,
villagers said. The cow is a holy symbol for Hindus, and its slaughter is
banned in much ofIndia,
including Uttar Pradesh.

Mr. Ikhlaq and his son were brutally beaten and dragged from
their house, and the father was declared dead hours after the attack. The son,
Danish, was hospitalized but later recovered.

Local leaders of the governing
Bharatiya Janata Party and activists opposed to the killing of cows criticized
the police’s decision to bring murder charges. The Bharatiya Janata Party state
president pointed tothe police’s failure to
adequately respond to the crime of cow slaughter. Vishal Rana, the
son of a local Bharatiya Janata Party member, was among those arrested.

Prime MinisterNarendra
Modicame under fire
from critics, including the opposition Congress Party, who said that he had
failed to immediately condemn the killing. In mid-October, Mr. Modi told a
Bengali newspaper that the episode in Dadri was“sad” and
“undesirable,”but
maintained that the central government had no role in such attacks.

Rules to protect cows have been tightened in at least two states
since the election in 2014 of Mr. Modi, who warned during the campaign that his
opponents would seek to vastly expand the animals’ of cows.

Anurag Singh, a senior police official in Dadri, confirmed the
preliminary findings, and he said the final forensic results would be submitted
in a supplementary filing.

Mr. Ikhlaq’s family members have maintained that the meat they
were eating before his death was goat. They fled the village after his death,
and the findings only added to their sense of anger.

“Everyone is talking about the
report now, but you tell me why should we have lied?” said Ikraman Ikhlaq, Mr.
Ikhlaq’s widow, in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “We said then it was
goat’s meat, and the truth is out now. It does not matter anymore. My husband
is dead and gone, and our lives will never be the same again.”